The process of transmitting sounds from the initial capture to consumption can be summarised by four stages:                1. Capture. Acoustic signals are captured and converted into voltage representations and are stored on a (typically) digital media as digital audio signals, typically via a microphone.        2. Production. Digital audio signals are combined, and processed using a range of tools to produce a final “mix” that fulfils a range of functional and aesthetic objectives, e.g. a musical project with involved combining audio signals recorded from multiple instruments and the final mix is stored as a stereo audio signal, and the sound production stages of a film project would involve combining the dialogue, sound effects and sound track as a 5.1 audio signal. This process is undertaken in a dedicated production studio, key components of which are a sound treated room and high quality loudspeakers.        3. Transmission. The final mix (i.e. the audio signal) is transmitted to the consumer, as a broadcast signal (e.g. television), as physical media (e.g. compact disk), or as digital media (e.g. mp3 download).        4. Consumption. Consumers listen to the transmission by playing back the audio signal on a suitable reproduction system, e.g. home stereo, personal mp3 player, or cinema.        
Live transmissions—which includes telecommunication—follow an equivalent process, however the production process and transmission stages occur in real-time alongside the capture.
Techniques to improve audio transmission have generally focussed on preserving the fidelity of the audio signal through the transmission process. An early example of this was the use of digital encoding and processing of trans-Atlantic telephone communication, which dramatically reduced the inevitable noise introduced on long distance lines. Focus in more recent years has been on ways to compress the data transmission rate, whilst allowing for “loss-less” reconstruction of the original audio signal. Manufacturers of sound systems strive to produce amplifiers and loudspeakers that produce acoustic signals that are true representations of the transmitted audio signal (i.e. linearly scaled versions). In addition, others have developed a means to automatically equalise the audio signal to mitigate the effect that the sound system may have on the frequency spectrum of the reproduced sound. There is therefore always room for improving different parts of the process of capturing, producing, transmitting and consuming sounds. None of these parts have yet been perfected and the attempts to improve these different parts of the process usually result in some compromise, particularly when it comes to the final sound quality at the sound consumption stage.